LOOKED LIKE LAUGHING

NORA, twenty-one, never home anymore —
now congregates in hotels with her true love,
asks questions when the trusty bible isn’t
in the drawer in the night table on her side
of the bed, the right one, and she says,
the rolling paper, we forgot the rolling paper

so FITZ tears a piece of zephaniah, ch. 1, v. 14,
she sits on his thigh, more bump on her bone
than the last time they met, but it is so great —
someone’s ridges fill someone else’s hollows
and together they are the teeth on a clenched
zipper, or the adhesive on a week-old toy story
bandage a five-year-old refuses to strip off

they keep goofing up, it’s only ever fun this way
she keeps laughing, then hollerin’, cryin’ O lord
do you think housekeeping will knock, says she
and says he, they only will if we have to go,
hoping she’ll anchor her lips on his gristly cheek
but she gives more, clasps her four limbs with his

who knew light could seem so cold, when that
toothpaste hue is emitted from the overhead
lamp in the kitchenette, NORA wonders, but she
pauses serious thought again and cracks, making
a platypus mouth and sticking her thumbs out
like sissy hankshaw, and FITZ, how could he resist
this thing they made theirs, so real, tried and true

Please enjoy this poem submitted to us by Ikay

Life never goes as planned so I’m thuggin’ it,

Police shot my cousin right where he stand cause he was thuggin’ it,

The world don’t care if I live or die so I’m thuggin’ it,

The cops caught me hustling and my own mother took the stand and testify that I was thuggin’ it,

Lots of cold nights on cold corners with hopes of getting warmer when you’re thuggin’ it,

Death is always close by, friends ain’t really friends, a new start could be the end when you’re thuggin’ it,

You can spend your entire life confined to a jail cell staring at concrete walls instead of stars just because you was thuggin’ it,

Your own kids will say that you have no heart and that they cannot recognize who you are just because you was thuggin’ it,

The rich is getting richer, the poor is getting poorer, the constitution is designed so that the only way for you to acquire wealth is for you to be thuggin’ it,

George W. Bush was thuggin’ it, Bin Laden was thuggin’ it, even Pope Benedict the XIV himself is thuggin’ it,

Make the best of every situation, 22 years of struggling and I grew impatient so I’m thuggin’ it,

Life’s all about taking risks, ain’t no genie to grant me a wish so I’m thuggin’ it,

I thug it so my kids don’t have to grow up thuggin’ it,

Just searching for a better way, my soul is weary, eyes are teary cause I’m tired of thuggin’ it,

The world don’t care about the have nots, they judge us cause we’re poor,

They shot my brother’s brain out on the floor, claimed he was thuggin’ it,

I say he was just trying to survive,

We need hope, we need a better way, just show us that the upper society do value our lives.  

i got cut in daylight
it was a sunday
and the air undulated a hum.

i know a guy
who works 40 plus
a week
sixty nasty minutes
both ways in traffic
he comes home in a drag
but then he lives because
he’s making it work.

he should be
the fucking poet.

what business do i have
sucking salty air in the
cut-rate glory days
of my wasted youth
in the spaces of my life
forever surfing couches
shaking beer cans
struck dumb and
reeling from love
praying foolishly
that the lakeshow
will make a comeback.  

a lightning pole stretches its metal bone
into humid emptiness like a blonde sunbathing
in harker heights texas where she is waiting to be
struck dumb with electricity or loneliness.
 
my father curses his cut hands and folds his
denim shorts compounding interest rates in
his crooked skull praying for rain and when
it comes how he will holler. 
 
i knew a perfumist through sheets and she
talked with smiles and stares and in her
eternal quiet i heard sophisticated notes
my nose would never know boiling inches
below her muted glow.
 
come fast you strike of light!
come get me straight to the quick!
come ignite the powder kegs in our
soft foot steps and spread our expansions
across the smiling fucking sky!
 
i have a dumb face but it sees us
in fabrics and i can puke pretty
and find your searching hand in mine-
 
we can drink the beer
from my father’s breath
and wait for the rain.

we have dolphins 
posing as tuna, 
being purchased like slaves
at auction.

not to mention sweatpants 
playing the part of jeans,
amongst an ensemble of pallets,
underneath a halide-lit glow
of a discount retail club theater. 

o denim!
you conquerer of destinies; 
you equalizer of genders; 
you thing of the past; 
now, a dream assembled
off continent. 

only the pigs remain 
(claiming to be
in the octopus family) 
to be served daily
in exchange
for the ability
to peregrinate
from birth to death 
and back. 

sure and silent,
i watch nostalgia set in
with the cold breath 
of the drifting santa anas 
as i put my levi’s on 
two legs at once 
and manifest a quiet validation 
for today.

On the way to the bank
could I hear the city
want, could I hear the
open hearts sing pedestrian
fulfillments.
 
I am a map and my map
is cracks-
I am a flawed dad
waiting to be had.
 
Pin pointless medals to
my bare chest and make
room for strange smiles
to home in my wounds.
 
You couldn’t pass me
without pasting
your equal waiting
into my irrigated terrain.
 
I am cracks
and these human winds
smooth me like trowels.   

I am cracks and I couldn’t help it-
I am cracks and I couldn’t want to change it.

I returned from my disgustingly sober existence in the echo of a death knell to visit you and see how you’d grown. Cross-coil visitation is still imperfect, naturally (or, should I say, supernaturally). My appearance, or my presence, appeared at 10:44 PM as you stood bundled in three sweaters in your disgusting kitchen. 

Mushrooms
Cherry tomatoes
Turkey
Cheddar cheese, sliced
Salt, pepper
Mustard, mayo
Whole-wheat bread

Your knife was dirty and your supplies lined the counter without any order. You noticed the crumbs at your feet and the trash spilling from the bins to your right. You sliced the mushrooms unevenly. The tomatoes were halved more precisely. You were alone.

At least, you thought you were.

A perk of being a ghost is that I can see what you can’t. And I saw her there. She, cold as you, leaning into the nape of your neck, the nave of your chest, and breathing steadily. You could not see this. But this presence, unlike my own, you could definitely feel. Your hands

cold
boney
brittle
less nimble
than before.

And she, in forest green,

balled her soft
delicate fingers
into sleeves
and leaned
into all of you-

You, there, making
your sandwich at
a quarter to eleven
wishing miles
meant mists
with a chin on
your shoulder
whenever you
feel alone or
too quickly
growing older. 

I know how the kitchen can be at night. With your limited groceries. Your limited patience (though it grows). I could see you smiling into each breath. The cheddar feels right in its square slice. And you no longer need me, no longer need drink, no Christmas patio explosions in somber cold, no longer need to divide yourself into characters to rabbit punch into aesthetically accurate monsters; bloody, pulped brightly. And there I left you. You making a sandwich and feeling everything; all. 

a 
young 
man in a 
blood orange 
jacket glides through 
traffic passing the cold parked
cars who’ve forgotten every hue but blue
                                                                     and a
bright orange bead is pulled effortlessly
by invisible string across blue 
still water; gone its wet 
contrail folding 
back over itself
forgotten &
fast
. 

i learned to glide
on ice and chalky spaces
in the winter of 1967.

only wearing a
bloodless t-shirt
and workman’s pants,
the air tensed,
charged to expand,
as i carved snow
blocks and piles,
freeing forms
trapped between
frozen particles.

there was
an audience,
quiet as the
only sounds of
a curious man
skiing, observing,
breathing, multiplying,
filled the range.
       a few puffs
and jaunty jargon.
a camera set-up,
a partner in crime,
two sharp gazers,
an audience.

i got lost on the tundra
in the winter of 1967.
the paths blurred
with my touch,
the options
helped me to finally
define finite.

and i wonder
how my bones know
my bones grow
rootlike and rocketship

and i wonder
if michelle branch
or vanessa carlton
could really ever
strike and 
su
per
im
pose

but i bet alicia keys could
and me i can too.
 

sometimes a strange vision appears.
wrapped in white powdered memories.
a solid, saturated silence, surrounding
you like a blinding, static lake.

marching to syncopated friction,
tracks in rust colored dirt, tossed
d a y d r e a m s fusedunderneath worked plastic
and swiping chords of misty indigo,
long exhales, smoothing grooves & reflection.

recalling a suppressed sun dog,
your muscles sink as the pure rays
dance on every inch of your
concentration.    to the top.
where eagles nest and men
approach a principle lost in the
variations of a cloud[dash] incalculable,
mystery charged in every bounce of
light, every translucid droplet.

finally, your hair reaches a lighter density.
short breaths, short steps.
gray clay domains rush your vision.
roaming places your pioneer logic
at the mouth of a crestfallen cave.
you rest for five years, stirring.
tears take home in your growing eyes.

‘i wrote five novels.
i forgot what an image was.’
a fist-full of words buried on
ink brushed paper and condensed firmly,
marble on marble, crushing the lasting
remains of beauty into the soft-shell earth.

sunny paul simon
south of the finger lakes
and diamonds stitched with
cloud thread

yr geode skin.

sat quietly several
seasons in ice-shard diners
and never once read
my book.

canned laughter
& depersonalization. 

i can shred my skateboard

through forty human hells
and dream without
looking-

somewhere
a slab of concrete
still sighs
my name.

gone now the days darkened-
que suerte! and if only you
were lonely- camel cut and
turned into rust; gouging
fried eyes and without love
for yourself nor future.

carve so hard!
night glass skimming
and brimming with
limitless capacities.

videotape me tasting
moments and swallowing
your kiss- it’s instances
like this that buzzburn
nick thorburn basslines
through my bursting bloodline
glinted moonly i would be,
could be, poured and erase
the erosion; i, lapping, your ocean. 

husk me and hold-
this ship is my home
your heart
your throat
your curling
crackling foam. 

my hands went numb
for precisely five minutes.
measurement never stack for me,
i mulled and scraped until
they felt like Bruce’s,
blemished in crystal clear beauty.
dropping to joints, my mind dunked
into a wounded, opaque lake. the
gray clay rested, inches from
humanity, appearing untouched,
but the atoms still trembled.
only one golden earring can stay.

today is the day of the big race.
Today is the day of the Big Race.
Today is the Day of the Big Race.
Today is a big day. It is the day of the Big Race.
Today, I will run in the Big Race.
Today, I will not stop until I finish big, on the day of the Big Race.
Today, I will not stop until I cry on the day of the Big Race.
Today, I will win the Big Race.
Today, I will wince at the Big Race,
Today, someone will win big at the day of the Big Race.
Today, no one will remember the Big Race.
Today, will not be a big day.
Today is the day of the Big Race.

[quantum leap]

those never work.
it is muddied down by discipline.
wrapped in the tentacles of acronyms.

searching for escape,
tight circles navigate
around the notion of ease,
masked between the spaces
jammedinthemiddle of syllables
similar to the howling
in a bog on a decent night;
the non-croaks, the anti-rustling.
found at the moment of mental halt: […]